A 90-year-old man from Brush Valley has asked the state Supreme Court to hear his appeal of his rape case.
Ralph Duncan pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault and two counts of witness intimidation for molesting his teenage stepdaughter over a three-year period beginning when she was 13, and for attempting to prevent his wife and stepson from reporting the abuse. He was sentenced to 8-and-a-half to 30 years in state prison. He was 84 years old at the time.
According to a State Superior Court ruling in May of last year, Duncan failed to file his appeal on time, in fact two years too late. A second petition was turned down by the appellate court because he failed to address the timeliness issue, instead submitting a single page on which he tried to convince the court to take up the appeal based on a “newly discovered fact”, although he failed to disclose what that fact was. He then tried to claim ineffective counsel by his trial attorney. The court turned that down, too.
Duncan last month filed a petition for allowance of appeal, which asks the Supreme Court to agree to review his case. He’s serving his prison sentence at SCI Houtzdale.
